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CBO Score for the health care bill

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  • Thats a lot of money to spend per year, almost 100 BilLion Per year to be adding in spending, so how will that reduce the deficit?

    And what will the cost be in years 11 year 12 and so forth? Are we creating another SS, Medicare monster?

    @mr.-t said:

    Thats a lot of money to spend per year, almost 100 BilLion Per year to be adding in spending, so how will that reduce the deficit?

    And what will the cost be in years 11 year 12 and so forth? Are we creating another SS, Medicare monster?

    T, if you don't know how the bill reduces the deficit, why don't you go read about the bill? Clearly, you don't know anything about it except what you are told by your fellow fringers. It can be your assignment for today. You can learn all about Medicare Advantage, excise taxes, etc. It'll be lots of fun, and informative for you.

    As for the second part, the CBO just addressed that, and I just posted it, and then you asked about it like no one had addressed it. Just read what I posted.

  • @heckofajobbrownie said:

    Here's the CBO score for the health care bill:

    - The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period.

    - In the second 10 years -- 2020 to 2029 -- it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.

    Pardon my ignorance, where is the money coming from?

    @kosar_for_president said:

    Pardon my ignorance, where is the money coming from?

    It's a few things, but mostly cuts to Medicare Advantage, subsidy reductions, an excise tax on expensive health care plans. A bit busy now. I'll try to find a place with a good run down later.

  • So just remember what you heard during this whole debate - that this was a giant government takeover of health care, and that it's going to bankrupt the country.

    Well, there is no government takeover, no public option, this is done entirely through private insurance, and it saves the government $130 billion over the next decade.

    One is rhetoric, the other is reality.

  • So just remember what you heard during this whole debate - that this was a giant government takeover of health care, and that it's going to bankrupt the country.

    Well, there is no government takeover, no public option, this is done entirely through private insurance, and it saves the government $130 billion over the next decade.

    One is rhetoric, the other is reality.

    @heckofajobbrownie said:

    it saves the government $130 billion over the next decade.

    How do you do the math? are you crazy or on drugs? They are proposing spending over $940 BiLLion Dollar$

    sounds like the dems hit the lottery and went shopping at our expense.

    Plus how do you feel about the Insurance lobbist who are all for the HC reform bill? Why?

    It mandates that you have to have coverage. what if your unemployed? who pays then. You will or you will be Fined!

    Stop the partisan politics Heck, this is not a good bill and you know it, unless you feel socialism is a good thing.

  • T, you don't know anything about the bill. For you to not be able to understand that you can spend money, and also reduce spending and costs in other areas, raise some revenues, and come up with a net negative from what you started with, I don't know what to tell you.

    Let me try this way:

    I'm going to spend $500 to weatherstrip my house. Over the next decade, it's going to save me $800 on energy costs. I save $300 over the next decade.

    It's really not that hard to understand. I can't believe I just had to type that, but that's how lost you are.

    Next I can try puppets. One will be named "Spendy" and the other "Savey." Maybe that will work.

  • Here's the report, if any of you want to read it.
  • FWIW, I've gone from strogly against to ambivalent about this.

    I sometimes have to practice what I preach and that is, "Consensus is nearly impossibloe. However, Commitment is very possible. If everybody believes there is enough good, then they should commit and move forward'.

    Among things that bother me about the current system is that we are paying through the nose for all those people who show up and clog our emergency rooms and end up paying for NOTHING. Well, the money has to come from somewhere so, I guess, WE pay for it.

    IF the Dem's proposal truly requires people to carry insurance and insists upon objective measures for 'punitive' actions, I can probably live with it.

    If the Public Option was really a 'deal breaker' then why so much vigor in trying to break this deal??????

    I will take a leap of faith that the CBO got this correct......can't believe I just said that.

  • cutting medicare by at least 500 BILLION is the only way they

    can try to pay for it.

    As far as projections on cost savings go,

    it's a projection.

    I say disaster is waiting to happen very soon.

    Especially with this "slaughter house" move by the hc finatics.

    It's UNCONSTITUTIONAL> plain out.

    It's goiing to be a giant mess all over this entire country.

  • FWIW, I've gone from strogly against to ambivalent about this.

    I sometimes have to practice what I preach and that is, "Consensus is nearly impossibloe. However, Commitment is very possible. If everybody believes there is enough good, then they should commit and move forward'.

    Among things that bother me about the current system is that we are paying through the nose for all those people who show up and clog our emergency rooms and end up paying for NOTHING. Well, the money has to come from somewhere so, I guess, WE pay for it.

    IF the Dem's proposal truly requires people to carry insurance and insists upon objective measures for 'punitive' actions, I can probably live with it.

    If the Public Option was really a 'deal breaker' then why so much vigor in trying to break this deal??????

    I will take a leap of faith that the CBO got this correct......can't believe I just said that.

    @chicopee-john said:

    Among things that bother me about the current system is that we are paying through the nose for all those people who show up and clog our emergency rooms and end up paying for NOTHING. Well, the money has to come from somewhere so, I guess, WE pay for it.

    This point should have been made more over the course of this debate. Everyone who has insurance pays for those who show up in the emergency room without it.

    Wouldn't it be better if they had to carry insurance too, just like they do with their car?

  • @chicopee-john said:

    Among things that bother me about the current system is that we are paying through the nose for all those people who show up and clog our emergency rooms and end up paying for NOTHING. Well, the money has to come from somewhere so, I guess, WE pay for it.

    This point should have been made more over the course of this debate. Everyone who has insurance pays for those who show up in the emergency room without it.

    Wouldn't it be better if they had to carry insurance too, just like they do with their car?

    @heckofajobbrownie said:

    This point should have been made more over the course of this debate. Everyone who has insurance pays for those who show up in the emergency room without it.

    Wouldn't it be better if they had to carry insurance too, just like they do with their car?

    Of course that won't change much.

    Medicaid patients already use the ER as a clinic and it's going to be cheaper to pay the fine than buy the policy.

    Illegals will still get treated at the ER for free.

    And according to the numbers premiums aren't going down anyway.

    In fact many responsible citizens will get screwed.

    Plus the CBO guesstimate really means almost nothing.

    "That ring job will cost ya $500 unless we find something else once we get it opened up. Sign here."

    WSS

  • Steve, come on. 32 million more Americans will have health insurance under this plan. By our best non-partisan estimates, it's going to lower the deficit by $130 billion in ten years, and $1.2 trillion in the decade after that.

    As for premiums, they will be lowered under this plan. It seems like you read the headline of yesterday's AP piece, not the story. (They actually changed the headline over the course of the day, as it was misleading.)

    "Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help millions of people who can't afford the cost now."

    If a premium is going to go up by 10% a year, and it goes up by 3% a year instead, that's an improvement. It's not going to be lower than it was the year before because of the increase in the cost of health care. The idea is to slow the rate of that increase, which this bill does.

    As for illegals, early on there was a plan to get some illegals to buy into the system. And guess which party threw a shit fit? We discussed it at length in here, remember? So yes, there's no improvement on that illegal issue - though this is an immigration issue more than a health care one. But if your complaint is that illegals will still get ER care for free, that's no reason to oppose the bill. Nor did you want to take the steps to insure illegals when we discussed it last time, if I recall correctly. So you're not for getting some illegals to try and pay for their own insurance, and you're against them getting treated in ERs at tax payer expense. Well, there you are on both sides of the argument.

    You're going to cover 32 million additional Americans. You're going to lower the rate at which premiums increase. You're going to bring down the short-term deficit somewhat ($130 billion) and you're going to lower the long-term deficit by a significant amount ($1.2 trillion in the out decade.)

    Don't just throw your hands up and grumble. These are improvements to the current system. They address your supposed fiscal concerns. It's not going to make everyone's health care wonderful. It still leaves about 18 million uninsured. It doesn't go far enough on cost controls, in my opinion.

    But this is the bill. And you have to understand the political reality here: if we don't pass it, no one is going to take up health care reform for another decade - at the very earliest. More likely, it'd be more like 20 years. And by then, we'll be in an even bigger fiscal hole. And it'll be even harder to get out of it.

    You should be for this bill. But you're a strange sort, my friend. You constantly speak of pollyannas, and mock the people who believe the government can fix everything in their lives, and then you go after the health care bill because it doesn't solve every problem you can think of.

    Come on, man. Call your Rep. Say it's not what I wanted, but you better pass it. Then we can fix what's wrong with it going forward.

    That's how all of this stuff happens. Americans don't do wholesale change. They're cautious. They do it piece by piece.

  • Steve, come on. 32 million more Americans will have health insurance under this plan. By our best non-partisan estimates, it's going to lower the deficit by $130 billion in ten years, and $1.2 trillion in the decade after that.

    As for premiums, they will be lowered under this plan. It seems like you read the headline of yesterday's AP piece, not the story. (They actually changed the headline over the course of the day, as it was misleading.)

    "Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help millions of people who can't afford the cost now."

    If a premium is going to go up by 10% a year, and it goes up by 3% a year instead, that's an improvement. It's not going to be lower than it was the year before because of the increase in the cost of health care. The idea is to slow the rate of that increase, which this bill does.

    As for illegals, early on there was a plan to get some illegals to buy into the system. And guess which party threw a shit fit? We discussed it at length in here, remember? So yes, there's no improvement on that illegal issue - though this is an immigration issue more than a health care one. But if your complaint is that illegals will still get ER care for free, that's no reason to oppose the bill. Nor did you want to take the steps to insure illegals when we discussed it last time, if I recall correctly. So you're not for getting some illegals to try and pay for their own insurance, and you're against them getting treated in ERs at tax payer expense. Well, there you are on both sides of the argument.

    You're going to cover 32 million additional Americans. You're going to lower the rate at which premiums increase. You're going to bring down the short-term deficit somewhat ($130 billion) and you're going to lower the long-term deficit by a significant amount ($1.2 trillion in the out decade.)

    Don't just throw your hands up and grumble. These are improvements to the current system. They address your supposed fiscal concerns. It's not going to make everyone's health care wonderful. It still leaves about 18 million uninsured. It doesn't go far enough on cost controls, in my opinion.

    But this is the bill. And you have to understand the political reality here: if we don't pass it, no one is going to take up health care reform for another decade - at the very earliest. More likely, it'd be more like 20 years. And by then, we'll be in an even bigger fiscal hole. And it'll be even harder to get out of it.

    You should be for this bill. But you're a strange sort, my friend. You constantly speak of pollyannas, and mock the people who believe the government can fix everything in their lives, and then you go after the health care bill because it doesn't solve every problem you can think of.

    Come on, man. Call your Rep. Say it's not what I wanted, but you better pass it. Then we can fix what's wrong with it going forward.

    That's how all of this stuff happens. Americans don't do wholesale change. They're cautious. They do it piece by piece.

    @heckofajobbrownie said:

    You should be for this bill. But you're a strange sort, my friend. You constantly speak of pollyannas, and mock the people who believe the government can fix everything in their lives, and then you go after the health care bill because it doesn't solve every problem you can think of.

    Come on, man. Call your Rep. Say it's not what I wanted, but you better pass it. Then we can fix what's wrong with it going forward.

    That's how all of this stuff happens. Americans don't do wholesale change. They're cautious. They do it piece by piece.

    I would be Heck if it was a good bill.

    Honestly I'm selfish enough to want some free cake.

    Problenm is, I don't trust many politicians, especially those who pretend they're out for my best interest and not their own swollen egos.

    And all you give me is a list of "ifs" to deal with.

    If we find the balls and means to cut 500 billion in Medicare. We'll see Heck.

    You guys shit your pants when Bush tried to privtize 4% of your voluntary SS.

    But I'm realistic enough to know how short American memory is.

    And signing a contract that we can fix later?

    C'mon even you wouldn't buy that.

    Kid wants a new guitar.

    Dad says you gotta prove you can make the payments.

    Kid writes up a list pledging to stop smoking get a job take lessons and practice and get a gig once a week.

    Adds it up and the numbers look good.

    Too bad it's harder to quit cigs and find a job he doesn't hate.

    And those lessons.... Dude!! Thety suck.

    But somebody has to pay for the guitar....

    WSSa

  • Here's Ezra Klein:

    If you're a liberal House Democrat, here's what you'd be voting against: Legislation that covers 32 million people. A world in which 95 percent of all non-elderly, legal residents have health-care coverage. An end to insurers rescinding coverage for the sick, or discriminating based on preexisting conditions, or spending 30 cents of each premium dollar on things that aren't medical care. Exchanges where insurers who want to jack up premiums will have to publicly explain their reason, where regulators will be able to toss them out based on bad behavior, and where consumers will be able to publicly rate them. Hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to help lower-income Americans afford health-care insurance. The final closure of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit's "doughnut hole."

    If you're a conservative House Democrat, then probably you support many of those policies, too. But you also get the single most ambitious effort the government has ever made to control costs in the health-care sector. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill cuts deficits by $130 billion in the first 10 years, and up to $1.2 trillion in the second 10 years. The excise tax is now indexed to inflation, rather than inflation plus one percentage point, and the subsidies grow more slowly over time. So one of the strongest cost controls just got stronger, and the automatic spending growth slowed. And then there are all the other cost controls in the bill: The Medicare Commission, which makes entitlement reform much more possible. The programs to begin paying doctors and hospitals for care rather than volume. The competitive insurance market.

    This was a hard bill to write. Pairing the largest coverage increase since the Great Society with the most aggressive cost-control effort isn't easy. And since the cost controls are complicated, while the coverage increase is straightforward, many people don't believe that the Democrats have done it. But to a degree unmatched in recent legislative history, they have.

    The Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit didn't try to offset its costs. It just increased the deficit. And Medicare and Medicaid were passed in the days before the Congressional Budget Office even existed. For health-care reform, Democrats have gotten the toughest scorekeeper in Washington to bless their effort, and though many don't think that's good enough, it's a lot more than anyone else has ever done.

  • It's a pretty solid bill, fellas. It's a good start. It should be passed, and I think it will.

    And let's be clear: very little the far right has been saying about it all this time - government takeover, can't afford it, will bankrupt the country, death panels, will put a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor, what have you - is true.

  • Honestly I guess I'm to the left on some of this.

    I'd like to see the penalty for not buying a policy more in line with the cost of an actual policy.

    What good does it do if I refuse to buy a 500$ widget I'm only fined 100$? Answer: Obama gets an extra hundred bucks.

    Plus I'd be glad to see you guys with employer paid benefits pay tax on that income like the rest of America.

    And that includes Obama's pet groups.

    But until you Klein Obama Pelosi or anybody can cite a single entitlement that came out on budget after two decades I'm not going to swoon.

    Plus, call me when you guys are going to lead that fight to take away granny's meds.

    I'll not hold my breath.

    WSS

  • Once again, and for the third time, the problem wasn't adding a prescription drug benefit program, the problem was not paying the prescription drug program. No one wants to "take away Granny's meds." So you can dismantle that straw man.

    Government programs are funded by tax dollars, or they're funded by borrowing - in other words, future tax dollars. If you want to add an entitlement program, you should create a way to pay for the program. This is the fiscally conservative viewpoint, and one that you apparently don't share.

    And the swoon stuff ...come on. I don't have to swoon to support a bill. And I can't remember the last time I swooned. Perhaps my wedding.

  • When does responsibility for oneself come back into play instead of wanting the government to cover everything.

    Liberal whine babies think there should be a law for every aspect of life, they loave government programs and social engineering.

    I dont expect HC to go down within the next decade unless there is some type of tort reform or open state borders to allow competition. It worked well with Auto Ins.

  • Once again, and for the third time, the problem wasn't adding a prescription drug benefit program, the problem was not paying the prescription drug program. No one wants to "take away Granny's meds." So you can dismantle that straw man.

    Government programs are funded by tax dollars, or they're funded by borrowing - in other words, future tax dollars. If you want to add an entitlement program, you should create a way to pay for the program. This is the fiscally conservative viewpoint, and one that you apparently don't share.

    And the swoon stuff ...come on. I don't have to swoon to support a bill. And I can't remember the last time I swooned. Perhaps my wedding.

    @heckofajobbrownie said:

    Once again, and for the third time, the problem wasn't adding a prescription drug benefit program, the problem was not paying the prescription drug program. No one wants to "take away Granny's meds." So you can dismantle that straw man.

    Phrase it anyway you like.

    You're the guy that keeps bringing it up.

    So ask Pelosi to stop it until it can be done the right way.

    Government programs are funded by tax dollars, or they're funded by borrowing - in other words, future tax dollars. If you want to add an entitlement program, you should create a way to pay for the program. This is the fiscally conservative viewpoint, and one that you apparently don't share.

    Like I say Heck, get involved. Shut it down.

    Anyway if the fiscally conservative thing to do is give away everything and tax the shit out of somebody else to pay for it, I guess I don't.

    Heck, can we agree that cheap loans made housing prices skyrocket?

    Guess what happens when student loans are a dime a dozen?

    Yes.

    The price of a usually unnecessary education skyrockets.

    And the swoon stuff ...come on. I don't have to swoon to support a bill. And I can't remember the last time I swooned. Perhaps my wedding.

    Hopefully from strong drink.....

    WSS

  • T, please read something about this before you spout your ignorant mouth off.

    Nobody is getting free insurance. Everyone will pay something into their plans. Everyone will have deductibles and co-pays and premiums. The Americans who meet certain income criteria will receive subsidies to buy insurance. And giving lower-income Americans subsidies to buy health insurance is not even something that most Republicans disagree with. Because you can't mandate expensive insurance coverage on people who can't afford it. Hence, the subsidies.

    Again, here you are in your last few posts worried about what happens when you can't afford to pay, and then in this post you're worried about how the government will help people who can't afford to pay afford to pay. Well, which is it?

    It doesn't seem to bother you that you're bitching about the same problem that is addressed in the legislation. Instead, we get more ignorant, factless grumbling.

    Why don't you just shut up until you learn even the most basic things about the legislation? Why have an opinion if you don't know any of the facts?

    Doesn't it bother you that I have to correct every single one of your posts for factual errors? Or explain to you that you can spend and save money at the same time?

  • Steve, that was pretty weak tea.

    You: Go ahead, off Granny's meds.

    Me: Nobody is talking about cutting off Granny's meds. We're talking about paying for it.

    You: Go ahead, shut it down until you pay for it.

    We're not drunks in a bar.

    I suspect you agree that paying for entitlement programs is better than not paying for them, then letting people in the future pay for them, with interest, and that you're just being obstinate. So I'll just assume you agree.

    As for taxing the shit out of people, do you know where the additional taxes are coming from to pay for this plan? It doesn't sound like you do. Nobody is getting the shit taxed out of them. And you don't seem to know that much of the revenue is being found in savings and reforms, not additional taxes.

    Where would you prefer the revenue sources came from if not from the proposed taxes? It seems as though you believe that if certain people can't afford health insurance in the private market, or have a job that gives them insurance, that they shouldn't be allowed to have it. Is that your position?

    If so, let me know, and we can stop talking about this.

    And yes, I was plowed at my wedding. Everyone was.